It's hard to imagine now, as we've all been dazzled by the Samsung Galaxy's fab phabletness, but once upon a time -- 2010 actually -- people were desperate to learn about the soon-to-be released iPhone 4.

So desperate, in fact, that when a 21-year-old guy stumbled upon a prototype for the not-yet-released fourth version of the iPhone in a Redwood City, Calif., bar and leaked it to a tech blog, things quickly spiraled out of control.

That kid, Brian Hogan, now 24-years-old opened up about the whole nightmare in an Ask Me Anything on Reddit Thursday.

"It was extremely tough on my family, there were news vans in front of my house," Hogan writes in the AMA. He says his family eventually fled to a hotel. "My name got out in the media because my girlfriend at the time made a Facebook post about it." He writes that he and his girlfriend broke up about three months later.

Hogan didn't see any of this coming as he was heading out of a bar after last call and a drunk man approached him about a phone sitting on a barstool. The stranger told Hogan to take the phone, assuming it was Hogan's. Long-story short, the next day Hogan realized that the iPhone he was holding was no ordinary handset. He writes on Reddit:

First I noticed that the screen looked like it had a higher resolution than any iPhone I had seen, then that the case had plastic pieces/buttons in strange places. When I took the case off I found an iPhone with a flat back, flat edges, and a forward facing camera. There were two bar code stickers on the back, and there were a series of x's instead of a serial number. I was very curious/excited at this point, but I had no idea what I had.

Hogan and his friend tried contacting Apple, but says the company "blew him off." They wound up in touch with tech blog Gizmodo, which offered to pay him for the story. In the Reddit AMA, Hogan seems most upset with Gizmodo and Reddit commenters quickly jumped in to criticize the website on Wednesday. "I wish Gizmodo and Gawker would go bankrupt as much as they are ethically/morally bankrupt," Reddit user realtedartists writes.

Gizmodo wrote and published an article about the accidentally leaked iPhone in April, 2010. It was later revealed that the phone belonged to Apple software engineer Gray Powell, who lost it while testing it out in the field (a bar).

After Gizmodo published the photos, Apple was not pleased. While Hogan was never actually sued, he was threatened with lawsuits, and suggests that he paid a lawyer with the $5,000 Gizmodo gave him. Hogan writes that he and his friend were each fined $125 by the courts after being charged with "misdemeanor misappropriation of lost property," who decided the phone was worth $250. Hogan also had to do 40 hours of community service, and served 1 year of informal probation. Gizmodo was never sued either.

"My friend and I were the ones that took the heat," Hogan writes. "From my perspective Gizmodo took advantage of me."

Gizmodo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

When asked what he would have done differently, Hogan writes: "I would have done lots differently looking back now, but how does anyone know what do do in that situation, let alone the 21 year old version of myself. What would you have done if you thought you had an unreleased iPhone?"

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iPhone 5 vs. iPhone 4S

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At last, the iPhone will become a part of the LTE community, which means it will streams videos and downloads content at quicker speeds. According to PC Mag, LTE connectivity for the iPhone will be available through AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint in the United States.

The iPhone 4S has a 3.5 inch display (measured diagonally) and weighs approximately 140 grams. The iPhone 5 boats a 4-inch display and, though taller than its predecessor, is 18 percent thinner (measuring 0.3mm) and 20 percent lighter (weighing 3.95 ounces), according to Philip Schiller, Apple's senior VP of worldwide marketing. The Retina display on the iPhone 5 now "offers 326 pixels per inch" and a resolution of 1,136x640, according to CNET.
The back of the device also looks slightly different than that of the iPhone 4S: "The same [aluminum] used in Apple notebooks" covers much of the back of the iPhone 5. Glass is inlaid above and below the aluminum -- either white "ceramic glass" or black "pigmented glass," depending on which color iPhone you select.

The iPhone 4S had a VGA front-facing camera (which is less than one megapixel) and a eight-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash.
The iPhone 5 brings some significant improvements to this department. According to Venture Beat, Apple claims that the camera will take pictures 40 percent faster and will have the ability shoot in "panorama mode." You'll also be able to take photos while filming video -- there's improved video stabilization, too. But the iPhone 5's main camera will still be eight megapixels.

Who dosen't want a smartphone with longer battery life? Apple promises the iPhone 5 will last 225 hours on standby, and eight full hours while talking on the phone or surfing the web through 3G.
The iPhone 4S falls just a bit short of the above estimates, maintaining only 7 hours and 41 minutes of talk time, or 6 hours and 56 minutes of web browsing.

The iPhone 4S was built around Apple's A5 processor, while the iPhone 5 houses a slightly faster A6 processor. Apple claims this upgrade gives its latest device twice the computing power.

The iPhone 5 steps away from the classic charger ports that have been in use for Apple products since 2003. Say goodbye to the 30-pin dock and hello to Lighting, a reversible 8-pin connector that's approximately 80 percent smaller than the previous charger port.
The new smartphone will also be sold with EarPods, Apple's latest (and supposedly more comfortable) version of earphones. Without purchasing an iPhone or iPod, these new buds retail for $29.99

The iPhone 5 is priced on the same scale that the iPhone 4S was when it launched. Purchasing a two-year data contract from a participating wireless carrier will set iPhone 5 buyers back $199 for a 16GB model, $299 for a 32GB model or $399 for a 64GB model.
Now that the iPhone 5 is official, the iPhone 4S is getting an attractive price cut. Apple will now sell the 16GB iPhone 4S for $99.